


Different Names For The Same Thing

by akisazame



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Anxiety, Anxious Katsuki Yuuri, Canon Compliant, M/M, Miscommunication, Panic Attacks, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 02:30:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10777596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akisazame/pseuds/akisazame
Summary: "Hey," Victor says, his forehead pressed against Yuuri's, "welcome home."Yuuri opens his mouth to respond, and nothing comes out. All the constants of the past few days swirl around in his head and evaporate; his brain latches onto the word 'home' and chews it up and spits it out, rejected.He squeezes his eyes shut, inhales slowly, and wills his stomach to unclench. He's just tired, he tells himself. Everything will look better in the morning.(Yuuri moves to Saint Petersburg. His anxiety, of course, moves with him.)





	Different Names For The Same Thing

It's been six years since the last time Yuuri moved to a whole new city, and there is so much about the experience of moving to Saint Petersburg that is very different from the experience of moving to Detroit. He had moved to Detroit with two big suitcases; he is shipping nearly all of his belongings to Saint Petersburg. He had only ever intended to live in Detroit for the duration of college; he has no idea how long he'll stay in Saint Petersburg. When he'd moved to Detroit, he was an inexperienced skater; now, moving to Saint Petersburg, the Grand Prix Final has named him the second best male skater in the world.

When he'd moved to Detroit, he'd been alone. Now, he has Victor.

These are the things Yuuri's thought about for days, through the whirlwind of planning and packing and saying his goodbyes. They're the thoughts he clings to during the hours on the plane, Victor asleep and drooling on his shoulder. He manages through gathering Makkachin and their luggage, through the mess of getting through customs, through the taxi ride to the apartment, through the exhausted stumbling into said apartment so they can finally collapse into bed.

"Hey," Victor says, his forehead pressed against Yuuri's, "welcome home."

Yuuri opens his mouth to respond, and nothing comes out. All the constants of the past few days swirl around in his head and evaporate; his brain latches onto the word 'home' and chews it up and spits it out, rejected.

He squeezes his eyes shut, inhales slowly, and wills his stomach to unclench. He's just tired, he tells himself. Everything will look better in the morning.

"I'm home," he finally manages to say, but it doesn't sound believable. It doesn't matter, because Victor is already asleep. Yuuri rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling until Makkachin wanders in and noses worriedly at his shoulder. He pats the edge of the bed and Makkachin jumps up, letting himself be hugged like a stuffed toy as Yuuri tries to match his breathing to Victor's and convince himself that this is where he belongs.

\--

Yuuri is only half sleeping when he feels Victor roll out of bed and disappear into the bathroom the next morning. Makkachin is already gone, which is the only evidence Yuuri has that he managed to fall asleep at all. He keeps his eyes militantly closed, grasping for the comforting embrace of unconsciousness, but his brain has already started working, conjuring up an entire list of insecurities. Has the apartment been properly resupplied? He doesn't know where the nearest store is. He's not confident that he could string together enough Russian to ask someone where the nearest store is. He could probably call up a map on his phone, but what if he can't find what he's looking for in the store? Why don't they make maps for stores? If Victor leaves, he'll be totally helpless, alone in the apartment, possibly without food. And maybe Victor won't _come back,_ which means...

He forces out a shuddering breath and sits up, scrubbing his hands over his face. There's Xanax for emergencies in his suitcase, but he doesn't want to have to rely on that already.

He'd been so confident. Where did it go?

He's so absorbed in trying to stave off the panic attack that he doesn't notice that Victor has come back into the room until there's two warm hands pressing down on his shoulders. "Yuuri," Victor says, his voice sounding very far away even though Yuuri can feel Victor's breath against his forehead. Yuuri looks up from his hands and sees Victor's face, skin flushed pink from the shower, eyes wide and concerned. "I'm sorry, I was trying not to wake you."

"You didn't," Yuuri says, truthfully. He's had years of practice sleeping in hotel rooms, accompanied more often than not by the familiar spectre of nervousness, but this is different. This is supposed to be home, even though his brain is still resisting the idea. He shrugs Victor's hands off, and Victor withdraws a little, sitting cross legged on the opposite corner of the bed. He's only wearing a towel, one distant part of Yuuri's brain helpfully points out, as if the rest of Yuuri's brain were in any condition to do anything with that information. "Were you going out?"

"Mmm, probably not. Unless you want to?" Now that Victor's not touching Yuuri, he seems unsure of what to do with his hands. He runs one through his shower-damp hair while tracing circles in the sheets with the index finger of the other.

On impulse, Yuuri reaches out and grabs the hand that's on the bed, lacing their fingers together. Victor smiles at him, and the knot in Yuuri's stomach starts to unravel, just a bit. "Let's go practice?"

"Already?" Victor laughs, bringing Yuuri's hand to his lips and kissing the knuckles. "You're insatiable. Don't even want to take one day off?"

Yuuri's spent so many years trying to explain the spiral of his anxiety to people that he's run out of words entirely. He knows Victor will listen, but doesn't know how to make himself understood. The process of explaining only serves to make things worse when he's already teetering on the edge. Victor's apartment and the great unknown outside of it are terrifying; the ice is familiar, a known quantity. Whether it's in Hasetsu, or Detroit, or Barcelona, or Saint Petersburg, the rink may be different but the ice itself is the same.

"No, let's go," Yuuri says, not sure if he's managing to keep the frantic edge out of his voice. "Right now. Please."

For a moment, it looks like Victor wants to say something. Yuuri braces himself for it. Instead, he just feels Victor's thumb run gently along the back of his hand. "Anything you want," says Victor.

The anxiety shadows Yuuri all morning, as he gets ready in an unfamiliar bathroom and walks with Victor down unfamiliar streets and gets ready again in an unfamiliar locker room. The worst of it is when they're outside, with the Russian voices and Cyrillic street signs and domed rooftops as constant reminders that this is not where Yuuri should be, even as the warm grip of Victor's hand tries to convince him otherwise. It's not until he finally gets on the ice that he can close his eyes and let everything else fall away.

Back in Detroit, Yuuri's therapist had given him a whole list of coping mechanisms, so he could try them out and see which ones were most effective. Rationalization. Breathing exercises. Meditation. Writing in a journal. Yuuri tried them all, with varying degrees of success. What worked best, he discovered, was just to distract himself until he forgot all about his anxiety, and the easiest way to do this was to skate until his mind went blank. When he'd told her about it, she'd explained dissociation as both a mental defense system and a pathological disorder. "In context, what you've described doesn't immediately worry me," she'd said, watching Yuuri in the same careful way she always did, "but I'm sure you can understand the danger in relying on it."

Yuuri didn't rely on it, because it wasn't in his nature to rely on anything. He doesn't want to have to rely on it now. But there's something comforting in letting his muscle memory make all the decisions for him while he loses himself in the white noise of skates scraping ice. The world is fuzzy around the edges without his glasses on, blurring the unfamiliar text on all the rink's signs into nothing but colors and shapes. Yuuri could be anywhere right now, and it makes his body feel light, buoyant, transparent.

He skates compulsory figures for an indeterminate amount of time, his mind blissfully blank for the first time in weeks. He still isn't thinking when he starts skating disconnected elements from Yuri On Ice, from Eros, from other older programs that he hasn't performed in years but are still stitched into the fabric of his muscles. It isn't until he comes out of the quad toe loop triple toe loop from Stay Close To Me that he realizes he has an audience: Mila Babicheva and another female skater Yuuri has never met are leaning on the boards, watching Yuuri with appraising eyes. Mila notices that they've been noticed, waving and applauding before her companion taps her on the shoulder and says something to her in Russian. The mystery girl grins, and Mila laughs, and Yuuri's skates skid to a stop, his heart leaping into his throat.

There's no doubt that they're talking about him. They're looking right at him as they do it. After years as a competitive skater, Yuuri should be used to people talking around and about him, sometimes in languages he can't understand, but there's something about it happening here and now that rattles him to his core. He skates quickly to the gate and leaves without so much as acknowledging Mila, which he knows he'll regret later but can't bring himself to care about now. He can feel the panic rising in his chest until he reaches the locker rooms, stripping perfunctorily and turning on one of the showers as hot as it will go. He stands there under the spray until he can't stand the heat anymore, and then a little longer because he can't make his feet move.

When Yuuri would get overwhelmed back in Hasetsu, he would either go to the Ice Castle after hours and let Yuuko protect him from prying eyes, or he'd go to Minako-sensei's studio where she would do the same. Between the two, there was usually a place he could be utterly alone, performing for no one until the exhaustion crushed everything else away. In Detroit, the worst anxiety he experienced for the first year was over finding a new place to hide from everyone while he overcame his anxiety, so he managed to trick himself into thinking he didn't need a place after all. It was only after he burst into tears during his therapy session for the third week in a row that his therapist coaxed the story out of him. By the next week's appointment, she'd tracked down two different ballet studios that only boasted between five and ten students, both of which saw no problem with having a GPF-hopeful figure skater hiding inside to practice at odd hours of the day and night.

The trouble is, it's been six years since Detroit. Yuuri should've anticipated this, should've researched places that might be more secluded than the rink where the entire Russian skating team practices. The ice itself is the same, but there are so many more factors than that. Yuuri clenches his hands into fists, nails digging into the flesh of his palms, furious with himself.

It's a small miracle that no one finds him like this, but eventually Yuuri's self-consciousness overtakes his anxiety. He turns off the shower, dries off, and gets dressed in his street clothes again. It won't be a lie to tell Victor that he's tired; the panic attack left Yuuri feeling wrung out like a rag. He heads back out to the rink, cradling his bag to his chest protectively, and spends a minute fruitlessly scanning the stands for Victor before he realizes that Victor is on the ice, skating with the same delicate grace that Yuuri fell in love with years and years ago. All of the other skaters are either ignoring him or pretending to ignore him, which Yuuri supposes must be a learned trait when you're rink mates with a five-time world champion. Yuuri, however, has no such training; all of the air vacates his lungs as he watches Victor flawlessly land the same quad-triple combo that Yuuri had done earlier.

Victor is smiling as he does it, and Yuuri thinks: _I can put up with anything if it means I get to see him smile like that._

It's then that Victor notices him, and the smile changes to a different one, something softer that makes Yuuri feel very warm inside. Victor skates up to the boards and leans against them, looking like he'd leap clear over them and into Yuuri's arms if Yuuri asked. "Ready to go already?"

"I'm more tired than I thought I was," Yuuri says, the not-quite-a-lie he'd composed falling out of his mouth automatically. He sits down on the bench behind him, resting his chin on the bundle of his bag. "But I don't mind waiting if you want to skate some more."

Yuuri expects Victor to acquiesce immediately, but he looks strangely torn. Just like that morning, it looks as though Victor wants to say something; just like that morning, he doesn't say it. "What do you want?" he asks instead.

With his glasses back on, the Cyrillic on all the rink's signs stands out sharply in Yuuri's vision. Distantly, he can hear Yakov shouting at someone in Russian. Everything about this place feels like an ill-fitting costume. But Yuuri looks back at Victor, who's watching him with careful fondness, and that's something that's become comfortable despite its surface-level absurdity. For the first time in what seems like hours, Yuuri takes a full, deep breath. "I want to watch you skate," he says to Victor, and the smile from before, that first one, comes back to Victor's face. "Please?" Yuuri adds, knowing it's unnecessary, but enjoying the way it makes Victor preen.

"Anything you want," Victor says. He skates away backwards, keeping his eyes on Yuuri for a very long time before launching into a triple loop.

Yuuri digs his earbuds out of his bag, turns on a playlist of classical music, and pretends that they're back at Ice Castle Hasetsu, just the two of them.

\--

The time difference between Bangkok and Saint Petersburg is twice as long as the time difference between Bangkok and Hasetsu, but it's still shorter than the difference between any of those places and Detroit, so Yuuri takes it as a win. He knows that Phichit would drop everything to Facetime with him regardless, but it makes Yuuri feel like less of a burden if he's not calling his best friend at 3 in the morning.

"So," Phichit says, his face huge in the video due to the phone's proximity to his face, "how's Saint Petersburg treating you?"

"It's..." Yuuri nearly says 'good' automatically, the polite neutral response, but he knows Phichit will call him out on it. He bites his lip, remembering the incident on his first day at the rink; it's been a week and a half since then, and he's spent most of it on the defensive. The bottle of Xanax, which Yuuri had retrieved from his suitcase and tucked into the medicine cabinet behind the industrial-sized bottle of aspirin, is decidedly worse for wear. Phichit is silent and patient on his side of the call. "Honestly? I wish I knew more than ten words of Russian."

Phichit laughs, but not unkindly; it's the kind of laugh someone uses when they can completely commiserate on an experience. Yuuri laughs, too, after a beat. "Remember when I first came out to Detroit? You and Ciao Ciao had to come pick me up in Ann Arbor because I couldn't read the public transit signs. And then _you_ cried about it!"

"I had a _panic attack_ about it," Yuuri corrects. He's far enough removed from the incident that he can find it amusing rather than embarrassing. "The whole time you were lost, I kept thinking 'what if _I_ had gotten lost?' It was mortifying." He readjusts his position, tucking his feet into a seiza on the bed. "You knew way more than ten words of English when you came to Detroit, though."

"I knew more net slang than actual useful words." Phichit's video glitches out briefly as he collapses back on his bed and the phone tries to work out the correct orientation. "Besides, public transit maps are a nightmare whether you know the language or not."

The second half of Yuuri's thought has been percolating in his head ever since he spoke the first half, and he finally lets it bubble out, his voice pitched low despite being alone in the apartment. "Whenever I hear people speaking Russian, I'm always worried they're talking about me."

After years of friendship, Phichit has worked out the difference between Yuuri making a joke about his anxiety and Yuuri being completely serious about his anxiety. A tiny crease forms between Phichit's eyebrows. "If they're talking about you, it's because you won silver in the GPF. Seriously, do you still not believe you're famous?"

"That just makes it worse!" Yuuri's feet slip out from under him as his whole body slumps dramatically.

"How does that make it worse?"

"Because," Yuuri begins, trying to grasp for the right words to match the rapid fluttering of his heart. "It's like... 'look at that random weird Japanese kid' versus 'look, it's Yuuri Katsuki, isn't he weird?'"

"There's no way people are saying stuff like that," Phichit says with utter confidence.

"You don't know that," Yuuri mutters.

"There's _no way,_ " Phichit interjects, steamrolling Yuuri's self-deprecation with the sheer volume of his voice, "because Victor would kick anyone's ass who talked shit about his fiancé."

Abruptly, Yuuri feels like the bed has disappeared from beneath him, and he's just hovering in space for the split second before he begins to fall. "What?" His voice sounds strange to his own ears, like he's very far away from himself.

"You don't think Victor would kick someone's ass for you? I'm more surprised he hasn't already." Phichit sounds far away too, but on the opposite side from wherever Yuuri's own voice has relocated.

"No, I mean..." Yuuri trails off. Swallows. Forces himself to exhale, which comes out as a slightly hysterical laugh. "He's not my fiancé."

Phichit's video stutters again as he abruptly sits back up in bed. "What are you talking about? Did you have a fight or something? You didn't break up, did you? I swear, Yuuri, if I get my hands on him--"

"Wait, _no!_ " Yuuri's heartbeat is loud between his ears, the panic whirling and veering into another direction entirely. "No, I didn't mean... no, Victor's fine, everything's fine."

The image of Phichit's face zooms out as he moves the phone away from his face into a more relaxed position. His relieved exhale comes through as a burst of static. "I did _not_ want to have to be the person to break that news on social media."

Slowly, the parts of Yuuri's body that had seemed to misalign themselves in the depth of his panic slide back into place. When he speaks again, his voice comes from where he expects. "I guess I'd just... never thought of Victor that way."

"Yuuri," Phichit says, the video zooming in on his face again, "you are my best friend. I have tolerated many ridiculous statements from you in the years we've known each other. But you cannot expect me to believe that you have never once thought of Victor Nikiforov as your fiancé."

Yuuri feels his cheeks heat, but thankfully it's not reflected in the tiny image of himself on his phone screen. "When I was sixteen, maybe. Don't you dare tweet that."

"I won't, I won't." Phichit laughs, and Yuuri draws the smallest comfort from the wrinkles in the corners of Phichit's eyes. "Man, Yuuri, seriously? You exchanged rings! 'We'll get married once he wins a gold medal', right?"

The memory replays in Yuuri's head like an poorly encoded video, blurry and artifacted in parts. The moment his brain fixates on is Phichit telling the whole restaurant that Yuuri and Victor were already married; those seconds play on a loop several times before it stutters forward to Victor's blissful correction. "It was just a promise. About the GPF. He always says weird stuff to motivate me. I don't think he meant marriage for real."

Phichit scoffs, the force of his exhale making his bangs flutter against his forehead. "Who says 'marriage' if it's not for real? Under the age of six doesn't count."

"You don't..." _...know him like I do,_ the statement finishes in Yuuri's head, but he hates how precious and petulant it sounds, so he stops himself from saying it out loud. Plenty of people know Victor better than Yuuri does, and in different ways. He's reminded of this every day, when he sees the familiar treatment Victor gives the rest of the Russian skaters, no two interactions exactly alike in their tone. It makes Yuuri sick to his stomach, which isn't something he'll ever admit, not even to Phichit. He falls back to downplaying. "I'm telling you, it wasn't like that. It just... happened. People don't get engaged for real like that."

"Fine," Phichit says, rolling his eyes so emphatically that Yuuri knows it's anything but fine. "Your boyfriend, then."

Yuuri's throat narrows. "He's not that either," he says, reedy and thin, unable to look Phichit in the eye as he says it.

He doesn't need to look at Phichit's face on the video to know what kind of expression he's making. Yuuri is extremely familiar with the You Are Completely Ridiculous But I Will Tolerate This Because I Love You face. He's even employed it himself, once or twice, with Victor. "Are you kidding me," Phichit says, flat, not a question at all.

"He's my coach," Yuuri says, though he becomes less sure of the statement as soon as it leaves his mouth. "And my competition now, I guess."

"And you live together," says Phichit, not missing a beat.

"Yes? That doesn't mean--"

Phichit doesn't let him finish. "And you kiss."

Yuuri splutters. His blush is definitely visible on the video stream now. "You can kiss people you're not dating!"

"And you have sex." Phichit pauses dubiously. "You _have_ had sex, right?"

"Oh my god Phichit why are we talking about this." Yuuri's face is threatening to go supernova. He faceplants on the bed in an attempt to minimize the damage to Victor's very fancy apartment. The phone drops harmlessly on the bed next to him, giving Phichit a lovely view of the bedroom ceiling.

"So that means you have," Yuuri hears Phichit say faintly.

" _Phichit,_ " Yuuri wails into the bedspread.

"Yuuri, please calm down, I'm sorry!" Phichit is laughing as he says it, which tempers the apology somewhat, but Yuuri manages to scrape together the goodwill to forgive him. Yuuri scrubs both hands over his face several times before sitting back up, readjusting his glasses, and retrieving his phone. "But come on, Yuuri," Phichit says once Yuuri is once again visible to him, "Victor is _at least_ your boyfriend."

Now that the initial wave of mortification has passed, Yuuri deflects instead. "You and I had sex," he says, delighting in the way Phichit's mouth drops open, "does that mean we were boyfriends?"

It was too much to hope that Phichit would actually feel self-conscious for more than a second. "So? That only happened the one time."

"Why is that different?"

"It was college experimentation!"

"And this is, I don't know, relationship experimentation!"

"Yuuri," Phichit says, his face very serious, "that is not even a thing and you know it. You're being ridiculous."

"You're the one making distinctions!"

Phichit's face deflates for just a moment before rebounding, his mouth a determined straight line. "Yuuri," he begins, and Yuuri knows that Phichit will not back down on this based solely on the number of times he's said Yuuri's name in the past five minutes. "Have you seriously never talked to Victor about what you are to each other?"

Yuuri shifts his phone into his left hand and stretches out his right arm, palm flat in the air, so he can consider the gold ring on his finger. He doesn't even think about it, most days, just like how he doesn't think about extraneous concepts like what label he and Victor should put on one another. "He's my coach," he says again, faintly, because that's one label he's certain about.

"He's more than your coach," Phichit insists. "I don't fuck Ciao Ciao."

All the blood drains from Yuuri's face. "Oh my god, I did not need that mental image _ever,_ thank you."

Phichit breezes past Yuuri's discomfort. "Do you really just think of Victor as your coach?"

_Of course not,_ Yuuri nearly says, flippantly, but he presses his lips together instead. He knows Phichit doesn't mean to be an annoyance. He's trying to focus on the conversation, but his gaze keeps drifting past the phone to the ring. It's not store-bought shiny anymore, and Yuuri tilts his hand, trying to make it catch the light. Phichit doesn't say anything; Yuuri knows from experience that Phichit is just waiting him out, until Yuuri can collect his thoughts.

So he lays it out slowly, piece by piece. "I don't really think about it? Victor's just... Victor. He's like... he's so much. I can't describe it." Each phrase feels like taking a strip out of his heart.

Phichit just hums, thoughtful. He waits, which Yuuri knows is meant to give him room in case he wants to go on. Then Phichit says, "Well, I guaran-fucking-tee he does not just see you as his student. He doesn't see you as 'just' anything." Phichit pauses, a thin line forming between his eyebrows. "Maybe you should ask him."

Yuuri's stomach does a somersault at the same time as his heart decides it has had quite enough and leaps into his throat as a means of escape. "He'll laugh," he chokes out around the heart-shaped lump.

"At being asked such an obvious question? I hope so." Phichit scoffs, but then the corners of his eyes go soft. "Listen, I know it's just your anxiety brain talking, but Victor adores you. You know that, right?"

Yuuri does know that. He sees it in every smile, feels it in every casual touch, breathes it in through Victor's mouth when they kiss. With every day that passes, the underlying fear that eventually Victor will come to his senses recedes, bit by agonizing bit. But Yuuri doesn't know how to put a name on it. He's not even sure he wants to.

"Don't be gross," Yuuri says, because he might explode right on the spot if he said any of the other stuff out loud. Finally, blessedly, Phichit changes the subject.

\--

They fall into a routine, because routines are what make Yuuri feel safe. Technically, Yuuri isn't part of the Russian team, so he could practice whenever he likes, but he goes to the rink when Victor does, skating with the rest of them and only sometimes being coached by Yakov. Victor is still Yuuri's coach on paper, but even living legend Victor Nikiforov has limits, and those limits include the ability to practice and coach at the same time. The other Russian skaters alternate between shouting tips at each other and relentless teasing, but they're never anything but kind to Yuuri, with the obvious exception of Yurio, who's already wormed his way under Yuuri's skin and intends to stay there. More than once, Yuuri has wondered if Georgi and Mila's kindness has been orchestrated by Victor; he imagines Victor with them in the locker room, rattling off a list of rules and regulations. Ten Helpful Hints For Handling Your Anxious Foreign Rink Mate.

After the Russian team finishes, Yuuri and Victor stay at the rink and practice together until Victor gets bored (common) or Yuuri gets tired (also common, but Yuuri never admits it until Victor calls him out on it). Then they walk back to the apartment together, Victor vigorously swinging their clasped hands between them as though he wants to make sure everyone notices that the two of them are attached.

Attached. Yuuri still hasn't had the courage to ask what word he should apply to that.

They're walking home at sunset on a Wednesday afternoon, the reflections of light making the water beneath the bridge sparkle like a path of multicolored crystals. Victor has his earbuds in, humming along to a song he's been considering for a short program; Yuuri isn't wearing earbuds, because it's not safe for both of them to be walking with earbuds in. The point of this is to be cognizant of their surroundings, but that's also the trouble: Yuuri is entirely _too_ cognizant of his surroundings, shoulders tense, eyes darting from place to place as though he's expecting to be attacked at any moment. The anxiety thrums through him like a second heartbeat. His gaze keeps landing on Victor, who seems blissfully ignorant of his companion's mental distress.

They stop at a crosswalk, and an old couple on a park bench begins excitedly chattering to each other in Russian. They are very obviously looking at Victor and Yuuri, but they're talking so quickly and Yuuri's grip on the language is still so tenuous that Yuuri can't work out what either of them are saying. He hears Victor's name, then his own. Yuuri's whole body tenses, his hand gripping tighter on Victor's, eyes focused on the traffic light straight ahead.

"'Is that them?'" Victor whispers in Yuuri's ear, and it takes Yuuri a moment to realize that Victor is translating. "'Victor Nikiforov and that Japanese skater.' 'You mean Yuuri Katsuki.' Don't they look so happy together?'"

Yuuri pulls away from Victor abruptly. One earbud is dangling from Victor's ear, and Yuuri has no idea how long ago that happened. He stares at Victor, horrified; Victor looks like a contented cat. The traffic light changes out of the corner of Yuuri's eye, and he darts forward into the intersection, dragging Victor along with him. He can feel the old couple's eyes following him, burning holes into his back. Neither of them say anything, Yuuri continuing to pull Victor along at a furious pace until they reach the apartment building.

The dam bursts once they're in the elevator. "When did he tell you?" Yuuri demands, letting go of Victor's hand and backing himself against the wall.

It seems as though Victor has only just realized that Yuuri is angry. Victor wears every emotion clear as day on his face, and now it's a combination of confusion and sadness. "I thought it would make you feel better if you knew what they were saying."

"That isn't the point!" Yuuri shoves both of his hands in his pockets, balling them into fists. His glasses, still cold from the air outside, are starting to fog up. "Why were you even talking to him about it?"

"Let's not do this here," Victor says. His voice is as calm as ever, and it only makes Yuuri more frustrated. He's tired of being the one who overreacts, unable to contain the wild fluctuations of his emotions.

"Fine," he says. He looks down at the floor, though he can't see anything through his glasses. Now that they're not talking, Yuuri immediately begins replaying the argument in his head, picking apart his sentences piece by piece. Within seconds he regrets getting angry in the first place, but now that's he's here, already angry, he doesn't want to back down. The tension between them is palpable, and Yuuri hears Victor exhale when the elevator door opens.

Yuuri leads the way out of the elevator, and the heavy silence continues as they stand at the front door of the apartment while Yuuri fumbles with his keys. Victor just stands back until Yuuri finally gets the door open, and Yuuri isn't sure if he's angry with Victor for that too. He takes off his scarf, hat, coat, gloves, shoes, each piece systematic as he tries to assemble his argument before voicing it. Victor just crosses his arms and leans one shoulder against the wall, eternally patient. Yuuri has no idea what to read into the fact that Victor is leaving his coat and shoes on, or if he should read anything into it at all.

Eventually, Yuuri runs out of ways to stall. He turns to face Victor and he realizes that Victor has been waiting him out, just like Phichit always does. It's enough to stoke the fire. "How did it even come up?"

"Don't blame Phichit," Victor says. "I'm the one who messaged him."

"Why?" Yuuri can feel the tears starting in the corners of his eyes, and he wills them back. He always cries when he gets angry. He hates how vulnerable it makes him seem.

Victor looks away, which means he's about to give an answer he knows Yuuri won't like. "Because he's known you longer, and I wanted to help you. I thought he might--"

"That's not..." Yuuri starts, and then stops, because he hadn't meant to say it out loud. Victor looks back up at him, head slightly tilted to one side, and Yuuri knows he has to finish it now. Truthfully, he isn't even sure exactly where that thought was going. So instead he says: "Why didn't you just ask me?"

There's a pause, one breath, two breaths, where the two of them just watch each other. Then Victor unfolds his arms, and Yuuri catapults himself forward, throwing his arms around Victor's waist. He can barely feel the warmth of Victor through the thick wool coat he never took off, but he doesn't want to let go long enough for the coat to be removed. Victor responds in kind, his arms encircling Yuuri and his chin resting gently on the top of Yuuri's head. The tension in Yuuri's body recedes, as though Victor's embrace is siphoning it away.

By the time Victor answers the question, Yuuri has nearly forgotten what it was. "When you're upset, I don't want to make it worse. When you're happy, I don't want to ruin it. There never seems to be a good time to ask."

Yuuri pulls back to look into Victor's eyes. The door is open and he has to walk through it before he loses his nerve. "Victor, what are we?"

Victor tilts his head, looking like Makkachin does when he thinks he hears 'walk' or 'treat.' "I'm not sure what you mean."

Something in Yuuri unravels, just a bit, because Victor's reaction either means that Victor is much better at lying than Yuuri realized, or that Victor and Phichit never talked about this part. The idea of Victor successfully lying about anything is completely improbable, so that only leaves the second option. But while there is comfort in the idea that his friends aren't talking about _everything_ behind Yuuri's back, that means that there is a very real chance that Victor, like Yuuri, hasn't even thought about it. Worse still -- and here that unraveled bit clenches right back up again -- it's possible that Victor hasn't thought about it because there's nothing for him to think about. In Yuuri's case, ever since Phichit mentioned it, he's been building it up inside his head until it became the size of Tokyo Tower. Now it feels like he's trying to force the whole tower out through his mouth. "You and me. Us. What am I to you?"

"You're my Yuuri," Victor answers instantly, like it's obvious.

Not so long ago, that would have been answer enough. Longer ago, that answer would have catapulted Yuuri over the moon. But now, he has to keep pressing. "You know what I mean. Like if you were introducing me to someone."

Victor frowns, his nose wrinkling in displeasure. "Why would I need to introduce you to anyone? Everyone should already know you. You're the best figure skater in the world."

"I'm not," Yuuri says, because it's true, though there's something heady about Victor Nikiforov, the actual best skater in the world now that he's back from his temporary retirement, saying so. He can feel the way the blush colors the bridge of his nose, but he doesn't shy away from it for once. "You're dodging the question."

Victor loosens his grip around Yuuri, and Yuuri takes a step back. He starts to take another, but Victor swoops back in, grabbing Yuuri's right hand with his own and lacing their fingers together. Then, very deliberately, he brings Yuuri's hand to his mouth and brushes his lips over the ring.

Yuuri tries to swallow, but his mouth is very dry. He bites his lower lip and Victor watches him do it. "I'd like," Yuuri whispers, "to hear you say it."

"My lucky charm," Victor says, and Yuuri laughs, and Victor kisses him, and that's the end of the discussion as Yuuri melts into it, letting his worries fade into the background.

It's not that Yuuri stops caring about the label on his relationship with Victor. Now that he knows the label is as unimportant to Victor as it had been to him, it recedes to the back of his mind with the multitude of other worries that lurk and loom and then ambush him in the middle of the night. What matters, he tells himself as he lies awake at 3:30 in the morning two days after their argument, isn't what other people think. What matters, he tells himself as he tries to calm his racing heartbeat, is that they're happy.

\--

The truth is, Yuuri isn't an idiot. Even more than that, Yuuri _knows_ he isn't an idiot. Whenever he feels like an idiot, he's aware that it's just his brain playing a cruel trick. But that doesn't make it any easier to convince himself of that fact in the moment.

When Yuuri was thirteen and infatuated with seventeen-year-old Victor Nikiforov, he'd tried to learn Russian. Finding a local tutor was out of the question, partly because of the rural nature of Hasetsu, but mostly because finding a teacher would inevitably lead to the question of why he wanted to learn in the first place, which Yuuri was not convinced he would be able to answer without blushing. So he looked up lessons on the internet and made a valiant effort to teach himself.

Yuuri spent the whole summer studying, teaching himself the Cyrillic alphabet and a basic suite of simple words. But then school had started, and the skating season along with it; that same year, Yuuri won third place in regional juniors qualifiers, and everything else fell by the wayside, self-directed Russian lessons included.

Still, Yuuri isn't an idiot. After that first disastrous day in Saint Petersburg, he memorized several polite phrases and made a list of location words, which he keeps folded up in his wallet so he's able to ask for directions. If left to his own devices in the city, he could probably get along just fine, because his anxiety refuses to let him be unprepared for a situation that is practically inevitable. But simultaneously, he doesn't want to be in a situation where he has to utilize these preparations, because that same anxiety has him convinced he will embarrass himself horribly. So instead of taking chances, he leaves the apartment with Victor or not at all.

Everyone else interprets it as shyness or introversion. Yuuri sees it as self-preservation.

It's in the name of self-preservation that Yuuri finds himself trailing after Victor on his way out of the rink at two in the afternoon on a Wednesday. They'd had a longer practice than usual the day before, workshopping possible new program elements for next season until well past dinner time, so Victor had suggested they call it early today. Yuuri doesn't feel tired yet, but he's gotten used to Victor being more perceptive about his exhaustion than Yuuri himself has ever been, and the alternative would have been walking back to their apartment alone. They're most of the way to the locker room, Yuuri at Victor's heels, when Yurio skates past them and yells something goading in Russian.

By now, whether by Victor's surreptitious suggestion or through some moment of clarity on their own parts, all of the Russian skaters speak exclusively in English around Yuuri, or at least make the attempt. The exception is Yurio, who uses English except when he is speaking directly to Victor. It caused Yuuri a substantial amount of panic until Yurio had turned to him and said, "No offense, Katsudon, but some insults just don't translate." Victor had instantly proven this statement wrong by translating, to which Yurio had waved his hand and said, "Yeah, sure, something like that." Yuuri had chalked it up to just another thing he would never understand about the Russian skating team and tried to leave it at that.

Which is why, now, Yuuri wants to pretend it hasn't happened. He keeps his gaze firmly affixed to the floor, hands shoved in his pockets, and keeps walking. Victor, however, stops in his tracks, causing Yuuri to bump right into his back. "Of course I did," Victor calls back amicably, answering in English despite the fact that he must know Yuuri didn't understand the question. He ruffles Yuuri's hair with his free hand the same way he ruffles Makkachin between the ears before he starts off towards the locker room again.

Then Yurio says something back, a rapid string of Russian words that tickles the edges of Yuuri's meager vocabulary. There are things he does pick out: Victor's name, the word for dog, and another word that sounds familiar but which he can't immediately place.

Victor smiles, bright as the sun, and answers in English again. "I will wear that title proudly, of course!"

Yurio grumbles a response, skating away to do the angriest quad salchow Yuuri has ever seen. Victor resumes walking, and Yuuri resumes following, and if Yuuri were a normal person with a regular brain then that would probably be the end of it, but he can't make himself stop obsessing over whatever Yurio had said to Victor.

For Yuuri -- or, more accurately, for Yuuri's anxiety brain -- the acceptable amount of time to ask a question is so infinitesimal that it may as well not exist. It's a mistake that he can't seem to stop making, and he's frustrated with himself for making it again, now. It only makes things worse knowing that Victor is just as hesitant to disrupt the equilibrium of their relationship by asking a question when he's not certain what answer he'll get. If Yuuri lets it stew, he knows it'll just blow up in his face like it had the last time, but the appropriate time to ask would've been immediately after it happened. He replays the moment in his mind, fantasizing about insisting that Yurio translate for his benefit. _Sorry,_ he imagines himself saying, _I didn't quite catch what you said about my Victor?_ Then, indulgently, he rephrases the words several times in his head, trying them on like new pairs of skates: _My coach. My boyfriend. My fiancé._ He doesn't know how he feels about any of them.

The memory of Yurio's words scratches at the back of Yuuri's mind, comprehension lurking just out of reach. They're crossing the bridge, hand-in-hand, when one of the words connects to a flash card Yuuri made over ten years ago. He stops in his tracks; Victor keeps walking, momentarily unaware until his arm meets resistance.

He turns around, pushing his sunglasses up onto his forehead. "Yuuri?"

The words come out in a rush, because otherwise they won't at all. "D- did Yurio call you my husband?"

Victor looks momentarily puzzled, then smiles just as widely as he had back at the rink. "He might have."

Yuuri's heart flutters in his chest. "And you said you'll wear that title proudly."

"That's right," Victor says.

"And you..." The air gets caught in Yuuri's lungs, and the words along with it. He tightens his grip on Victor's hand, because otherwise he feels like he might float away. "You meant that. You weren't joking."

Victor pivots so he's facing Yuuri, his other hand sweeping in to grab Yuuri's free one. He squeezes back with both hands, and Yuuri can feel the press of their rings, even through his gloves. "My Yuuri," Victor says, his voice so fond that Yuuri thinks his heart might explode, "why would I ever joke about that?"

All of Yuuri's emotions collide at once and explode into an overwhelming emotion smoke cloud. He thinks about Phichit on Facetime, weeks ago now, bluntly stating the facts about Victor's devotion to Yuuri as though they were irrefutable, and he feels every bit the idiot that he knows in his heart he isn't. There are tears in his eyes and he chokes on a laugh as he yanks his hands free from Victor's grip and shoves against Victor's chest.

"You jerk!" Yuuri manages amidst his laughter. His fingers clutch at Victor's coat helplessly and he pulls himself in, pressing his face against the soft wool. "Why didn't you say that when I asked?"

Victor blinks, stunned. "That wasn't what you asked, was it?"

"Oh my god, _Victor._ " Yuuri is teetering on a dangerous edge between crying and screaming. "Please don't tell me this is some kind of semantics argument, or it was lost in translation, or--"

"I'm not, I'm not!" Victor's hands come up to grab hold of Yuuri's again, and he brings both of them to his lips to kiss Yuuri's gloved fingers. "Yuuri, correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't _you_ the one who proposed to _me?_ "

Yuuri has the distinct impression that time has stopped. "What?"

"Twice, actually," Victor goes on, flipping Yuuri's hands over and kissing the palms. "Once at the airport, with the whole 'take care of me until I retire,' and then again in Barcelona with the rings. I'm honestly not sure where the confusion came from."

Yuuri shakes one hand free and presses it firmly to Victor's mouth. "Stop talking," he says, and while he definitely feels Victor's mouth move into a smile behind Yuuri's hand, no further words come out. The normal whirlwind of Yuuri's thoughts has slowed to a quiet breeze, and it takes him a moment to gather all of the scattered pieces into a coherent sentence. The bridge is strangely devoid of ambient noise, or maybe that's just Yuuri's perception. "You're telling me," he says, slow and careful, drawing his hand away from Victor's mouth as he speaks, "that you've been thinking of me as your fiancé this whole time." He doesn't bother inflecting it as a question, because he's certain what the answer will be.

What Yuuri doesn't expect is for Victor's entire face to wilt. "Are you saying that you weren't?"

It's as if someone's hit play on the paused recording of Saint Petersburg around them; all at once, Yuuri is entirely too aware of the other people crossing the bridge, the cars on the streets around them, the calls of birds overhead. He tightens his grip on the hand of Victor's he's still holding and once again finds himself marching Victor the rest of the way back to their apartment building. Victor doesn't say anything else, apparently content to be dragged around by his...

Fiancé. _Fiancé._ That's what Yuuri's been to Victor this whole time, and Yuuri was the one who started it. He _knows_ he's not an idiot, but in this instant it's especially difficult to make himself believe it.

"Yuuri," Victor says once they're in the elevator, "will you let me explain?"

"Absolutely not," Yuuri replies, backing Victor against the wall and kissing him like his life depends on it.

Victor does eventually explain, once they're back in the apartment and Yuuri is sprawled on top of Victor in bed. "You seemed so uncomfortable when it came up at dinner in Barcelona," Victor says, his breath ghosting through Yuuri's hair. "That's why I said that thing about the gold medal. Did that make you think I wasn't serious about it?"

Yuuri turns his head to kiss Victor's collarbone while he considers this. "I told Phichit that I don't think of you as my fiancé or my boyfriend. Hold on," he says, pressing one finger against Victor's lips to stop the protest that's halfway out of Victor's mouth, "that doesn't mean I don't want to be. It's just, we'd never said those words to each other? So hearing it from Phichit startled me. I didn't want to make presumptions."

"And that's why you asked me what we are," Victor finishes for him, sounding like he's finally found the solution to a particularly perplexing math problem.

Yuuri hums against Victor's skin, then looks up. "It didn't seem fair to say it to someone else first."

"So," Victor says, ducking his head to press his lips to Yuuri's forehead, "say it to me now."

It's a perfect opening, really. But, just like their first night in Saint Petersburg, Yuuri opens his mouth and nothing comes out. It's not that the term is inaccurate, because they've already clarified that. When it comes down to it, what Yuuri had said to Phichit still holds true: it's impossible to encapsulate Victor's role in Yuuri's life with a single word.

Instead, he takes Victor's right hand and kisses the ring. He can't keep the grin off his face as he says, "My lucky charm."

There's a beat, and then Victor snorts a laugh. "I deserved that."

_You deserve everything,_ Yuuri thinks, the wave of affection overwhelming him, and all of a sudden it's like he can't speak fast enough. "My coach. My boyfriend. My fiancé." He kisses one of Victor's fingers between each endearment, which makes Victor smile helplessly. "My inspiration," he says before kissing Victor's little finger, and that's when it hits him: it's not that Victor was none of these things, but that he was all of them, all at once. It doesn't matter which label he chooses, because they all mean Victor.

Victor turns his hand to hook one finger under Yuuri's chin, guiding him up for a kiss. "What a shame, then," he says against Yuuri's lips, "that the Russian language has some of the very best pet names."

What Yuuri doesn't say is that he's looked up a good number of those already, just in case. "Guess you'll just have to teach me," he says instead, as innocently as he can manage. If Victor sees right through him, he doesn't say a word.

**Author's Note:**

> things Yurio said to Victor, in order of appearance:
> 
> "Did you adopt a second puppy on purpose?"  
> "Victor Nikiforov, five-time world champion and proud husband to an anxious, needy dog."  
> "Why do I even bother talking to you?"
> 
> this fic started as "hmm, they never label the exact nature of their relationship in canon, let's explore that" and turned into "let me pontificate on Yuuri's Big Anxiety for 8400 words" but I will never ever apologize
> 
> follow me and my incredible ability to project on Fictional Character Yuuri Katsuki at [akisazame.tumblr.com](http://akisazame.tumblr.com)


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